Methodological Challenges in Studying Wealthy Families

Studying the wealthy is not easy. This piece provides suggestions for recruitment, interview strategies, and design to gain high-quality data on wealthy people. It is based on an interview study of 81 US racially-diverse families with a median net worth of $25 million. First, to gain access to the wealthy, it is key for the researcher to use a wide array of social networks, particularly weak ties, by asking acquaintances if they can mention the study to a potential respondent, and making the first request very small (such as a brief phone call) rather than large (a two-hour interview). Second, rather than standardization of the interview protocol, flexibility is invaluable along with early "safe" questions about money (i.e., salary of a first job) for gaining concrete information about family wealth. Third, designing a study to include multiple members of the same family can improve data quality by adding depth, nuance, and confidence in the findings.